RT Newton most recent testament to the tutelage of Benton

The Texans’ offense requires linemen with nimble feet and quick-firing neurons in the brain. Derek Newton has both.

Newton also has a coach in John Benton with special talents of his own. Benton, it seems, can take a giant lump of clay and shape it into the O-line equivalent of a Ming vase — minus the fragility, of course.

Mike Brisiel, undrafted as a rookie, evolved into a highly efficient starter at right guard, earning himself a huge free-agent contract from the Raiders. Chris Myers, an undersized sixth-round draft pick when Denver selected him in 2005, became a Pro Bowl center last season, gaining a big pay hike from the Texans. And Wade Smith, although originally a third-rounder, arrived in Houston seven years later as pretty much a hat-in-hand free agent, only to prove himself to be a hand-in-glove fit at left guard.

Now there’s Newton. A seventh-round pick in 2011 from Arkansas State, he won his battle with eight-year veteran Rashad Butler and will be the starting right tackle in the season opener against Miami a week from Sunday.

“I was excited,” Newton said of getting the good news. “I could have jumped for joy.”

If Newton progresses from here as expected — head coach Gary Kubiak says the Texans see things in the 24-year-old “that give him the chance to be a great player, not just a good player” — Benton should consider going on straight commission.

“The work John has done here in Houston has been exceptional,” Kubiak said.

Benton is a modest man who eschews media interaction when possible, and he typically declined to pat himself on the back for his latest breakthrough. Rather, he gives Newton props for using his natural gifts wisely by studying hard, playing hard and being “very coachable.” The Texans’ zone-blocking scheme isn’t easy to learn, and although Newton thinks he came out of a somewhat similar system at Arkansas State, he didn’t. Not even close.

“They were as spread (an offense) as spread gets,” Benton said, laughing. “When we got him in, it wasn’t the smoothest start ever. He really was a fish out of water. But he kept progressing. By the end of the year, you could tell he was getting it. He’s very bright, very intelligent. We’d drafted him as an athletic guy, a big guy who had showed some good tools. When you study those kids so much before the draft, you kind of know where they fit into your wheelhouse.

“He didn’t have a lot of notoriety coming out of college, but he definitely fit what we like, with quick feet and good balance. For him, it’s just a matter of experience and consistency. He had a couple of bad plays the other night (in New Orleans) that I guarantee you won’t happen to him again.”

The 6-6, 318-pound Newton sticks out in any crowd — even with his helmet on — because of his shoulder-length dreadlocks. He’s an affable, polite, gentle soul off the field. He responds to reporters and coaches alike with “yes sir” and “no sir.” Which raises another question: Does he possess sufficient mean genes to be a force in the NFL’s down-and-dirty trenches?

“Yes sir, I can get nasty,” Newton said.

He showed it against the Saints, Benton pointed out, after he was badly beaten on a run that lost yardage and drew a penalty to boot.

“On the next play,” Benton said, “Derek just caved down that end. He’s got a competitive streak in him. He’s a unique player. He can be as good as he wants to be. He’s got the same qualities the top-round picks have that maybe weren’t fully developed or realized in college.”

Newton liberally distributes the credit for his being such a quick study. Benton receives plenty. So does Eric Winston, the Texans’ right tackle for the previous 5½ seasons who was waived during the offseason. Left tackle Duane Brown, the team’s first-round pick in 2008, is the one starter on the offensive line of whom stardom was expected, but he, too, took his lumps as a rookie.

“Duane’s been very helpful,” Newton said. “He motivates me to work hard every day, (to) never take practice for granted. When I asked him how he went about getting over the hump, he told me that when you mess up, you just go on to the next play. You have to keep moving forward.”

Newton also expressed appreciation for Butler’s advice, which proved anything but self-serving.

“Rashad was very helpful every day,” Newton said. “We talked (Monday morning, after the players got the news that Newton would be the starter). He told me ‘good job,’ and I thanked him. It was a good competition. I told him I was still going to come to him for pointers, and he said that was cool. We’re still a group at the end of the day, and whichever one of us would have gotten the starting job, we would have still been the same two people.”

Newton’s growth curve is all the more remarkable considering he grew up in Utica, Mississippi (population: 820 in 2010), played just two years of high school football and attracted zero interest from major-college programs, which sent him on a juco detour en route to Arkansas State.

“This is a big opportunity for me,” he said. “Coming from a small school, a small town where not many people make it … it was tough. But I had a lot of friends and a lot of family support back home. They helped me get through it.”